


Babes in Arms Or, Sod That for a Game of Soldiers

by executrix



Category: Blakes7
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-05
Updated: 2011-07-05
Packaged: 2017-10-21 01:58:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/executrix/pseuds/executrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This turned into a La Ronde-style romp but honestly, why DIDN'T they have training sessions? It would be more useful than sitting around playing Galactic Monopoly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Babes in Arms Or, Sod That for a Game of Soldiers

**Author's Note:**

> With one exception, the epigraphs are from Sondheim songs.

1\. Recruitment

 _Don't you love farce?  
My fault, I fear._

+Call yourself a military organization+ Zen bootered (muttered, boomingly). +None of you could fight your way out of a crisp packet except the Auron female, and even then they'd have to start a featherweight division.+ Alleged computer humor.

"But we're not a military organization, precisely," Jenna said. "We are associates with a leader. That's all. We don't have a hierarchy or a command structure."

"The Federation at least displayed some modest esteem for my ability to fight--or at a minimum, shall we say create trouble," Blake said.

+As a leader! An organizer! If you walked into a bar...+

"With the Scotsman, the Irishman, and the Welshman..." Vila began,

"And the kangaroo," Avon supplemented. "Sorry, Zen. Alleged human humor."

+They'd be afraid you'd make the band play the Marseillaise, but they wouldn't think you'd start throwing the tables!+

"I'm not quite the duffer you think, Zen," Blake addressed the computer, wondering what the hell it knew about his martial prowess anyway. "As far as I can remember, I was quite an exponent of the Sweet Science."

"He means he can box," Vila told Zen.

"I wasn't born knowing how to fight," Cally said. "It's all a matter of training."

"That's what we'll do, then," Blake said. "We'll institute a program of survival training and fighting skills. Each of us will teach what he--or she--knows."

Avon sighed. The last few months factored out to a battle of wits. With Blake his instructor in unarmed combat. If only the prison ship guards had gone through with the original plans to bump off the rest of the prisoners and dispose of the evidence.

Well, he couldn't say he blamed them. Those would probably be the worst pies on the London.

 _He may be full of hokum  
But I've no complaint  
He often is a bore  
But on the floor he ain't_

"Hope it's all right that I dropped by," Gan said, making it Standing Room Only in the door to Vila's cabin. "Y'know, I thought that, after all this time, we could get to know each other better. You and me, we've got something in common. Just good plain chaps. With all these hoity-toity Alphas around, we need to get stuck in--ah, to stick together. Separate the men from the boys, but only after the boys have had a jolly good time. See each other as we really are."

Vila looked at Gan's worthy homespun costume. Stout boots. Thick breeches. Solid linen shirt, its sleeves visible through the sleeveless overshirt. "Jerkin off, you mean?"

A grin warmed Gan's face. This was going even better than he expected. Any of the other lot, they'd be going all around Robin Hood's barn for days.

They stripped faster than a fireman can get dressed and slide down a pole.

Vila was a little disappointed not to have to run away screaming. In relative terms, well, it looked a bit on the modest side, and considering the angle at which it was pointing upward, that was probably all he was going to get.

In absolute terms, however, it was quite a big cock. Quite a big cock. Like a really good bacon sandwich: you needed both hands to hold it. And it took quite a stretch of the jaws to take a nibble. I'll call it Rosy, he thought. Because it's just riveting.

"It's only the hand we need," Gan said diffidently.

"We can do a bit better than that," Vila said.

Vila swallowed, and swallowed, and swallowed. Salt of the earth.

2\. Boxing

 _It's not talk of God and the decade ahead that  
Allows you to get to the worst.  
It's 'I do' and 'You don't' and "Nobody said that'  
And 'Who brought the subject up first?_

Blake set up a heavy bag and a speed bag in the large boxroom that had been designated the crew gym. The floor was padded with several thicknesses of foam rubber. Ropes were strung between equipment stands to create a makeshift ring.

"Are we all here?" Of bloody course not. "You'd think that Avon would understand the need for cooperation when we all need to form a team and work toward the same objective. He's only making it harder on himself."

Vila nodded. That was his first guess too.

Avon made an entrance, his anthracite grey jersey trousers tucked into laced boxing boots. He wore a long-sleeved knit shirt, the color of lapis lazuli.

"Gan," Blake said, "Be a good fellow and hold up this pad." Gold satin shorts and a white ribbed singlet were not Blake's best look. "All right, we're going to practice the basic footwork and strokes. Don't worry, Gan, you're not going to hurt anyone. Afterwards, we'll work on the bags, and then we'll spar a bit."

Cally didn't have the strength to make much of a dent on the heavy bag, but she easily captured the rhythms of the speed bag. So did Vila--quick hand motions being, after all, his specialty. It was not clear whether Avon was not deigning to make much of a showing, or genuinely wasn't.

"Come on, Avon, into the ring."

"My project," Avon said, "Is to reduce the number of occasions on which I get hit by people bigger than I am. Well, in any violent sense of the term." It's not easy to cross your arms when you're wearing boxing gloves, but he managed.

So much for the "get hit" part, Vila thought. Wonder about the "bigger than me" part.

"Aren't you going to get into the ring and fight like a man?"

"Certainly not. Why should I?"

Hasn't he got any sense of sportsmanship? Blake wondered. He should have known better--like "Marquess of Queensbury rules," "constructive criticism," and "quickie" the term had simply never entered Avon's vocabulary.

"Afraid of me? Think that I can take you?"

"You and whose army?"

"Prove it, then."

Avon climbed into the ring. Vila looked around for something to make gong noises. Zen complied.

"Come on, then, man, put up your guard."

Avon kept his arms by his sides. "You can't touch me unless I let you."

Blake advanced one glove. Avon moved backward, out of range. This sort of thing went on for a while. "Stop dancing around and fight, dammit!"

Avon started intercepting Blake's arms, locking his wrist against Blake's and pushing Blake's arm away. It looked odd, but worked fairly well, until Blake began to feint with one hand and land light but stinging blows along Avon's ribs.

"Does that hurt?" Blake murmured, tauntingly.

"No, but I expect it's the best you can do." It damn well does hurt, Avon thought. And why am I encouraging this Neanderthal to inflict further violence on me? It must be a compulsion of some kind. It hardly counts as adaptive behavior.

Avon stepped back, tried to set up a combination aiming at Blake's jaw, but Blake blocked him easily. Avon moved back again, then changed directions just as Blake began to move forward. They both had their guards up, they were too close to land a punch, but they both kept trying, closer and closer.

In a clinch, in fact.

It's as good as a play, Gan thought. He and Doreen used to like going to the theater on their Thursday half-days. "Ethel the Pirate's Daughter and Romeo and Tybalt and Mercutio," now that was a good one. Lots of fights in that too, although knowing the people made it more fun.

Aw, get a room, Vila thought.

Oh, grow up, Jenna thought. At least with boxing gloves on, they can't pull each others' hair. Although Jenna strove to keep the knowledge to herself, smuggling was only a second career for her. Before that, she had been a primary school teacher. Vivid as an acid flashback, those days came back to her. Oooh, Miss, Broxven likes me! He put a frog in my desk!

"Keep your guard up, dammit," Blake said.

Least of his problems, Vila thought.

Even though Blake palpably pulled the punch, it landed hard enough to snap Avon's head around. That's enough, Avon thought. That's done it. He measured carefully to see Blake's belt line, then aimed a passable uppercut at the abdominal region. It had seemed to work well enough in the engine room of the London.

Collapse of Stout Party.

3\. Judo & Jujitsu

 _Now, Lucy has the purity  
Along with the unsurety  
Which comes with being only twenty-one,  
While Jessie has maturity  
And plenty of security,  
Whatever you can do with 'em, she's done._

"This form of unarmed combat uses the attacker's own strength and weight against him," Cally said. Against her. rather: she was paired up with Jenna for the demonstration. She stood behind Jenna and hooked one of Jenna's ankles out from under her. They landed in a heap. Jenna bounced once when they landed. Cally continued bouncing somewhat longer. All the comforts of home, she thought dreamily.

Vila wasn't sure what the strategic value of patting Jenna's ass was, but he did see why Cally thought it was a worthwhile tactical objective.

Blake cleared his throat, and Cally rolled off and held out her hand to help Jenna get up. Then she twisted the arm behind Jenna's back. Jenna dropped down on one knee, and Cally followed, with an arm around Jenna's neck. It did not seem strictly necessary for the hand on this arm to be down the back of Jenna's blouse, or to slide beneath the strap of Jenna's bra. This feels awfully crunchy, Cally thought. If the straps are lace, the cups must be...

"As you can see, in this move, the hands are joined and pressed forcefully against the solar plexus."

"The solar plexus is rather lower down," Avon said.

"And your hands aren't exactly joined either," Vila said. "Have another melon, Cally baby."

"Mmmmmhhhh," said Jenna.

 _I saw 'My Fair Lady.'  
I sort of enjoyed it._

Cally's emotions were strong enough for Jenna to receive clear words and images that Cally was sending. But she didn't understand all of them. Cats, she knew, were small domesticated felines kept as pets. But was Dinahshore the correct pronunciation for the long-extinct Earth reptile? And what was a U-Haul?

"Why don't we go to my cabin?" Cally asked faintly.

How lovely Jenna looks in her pert tap pants! Cally thought. How provocatively her polka-dot blouse clings to every delicious curve! How jaunty the little bobbles on the socks that protrude from her pristine white canvas shoes! Oooh, and they're tap pants, I can just slide my hand in from the bottom and get a good handful of that perky little arse!

She certainly looks interested, or at least intrigued, Cally thought. Errrm, is it more embarrassing to ask her or more embarrassing to be wrong? It's easier to get forgiveness than permission, and the hotter I can get her, the better an idea it's going to seem...

Auron pheromones, spicy, woody, and resinous, flooded the air. Cally undid the knot securing the tails of Jenna's blouse, and undid the bottom one of the three large mother-of-pearl buttons that mimicked the polka dots. She bent forward, and kissed the flat plain running from Jenna's ribs to the waistband of the shorts.

Jenna decided that her duty as a conscientious crewmember required her to improve her martial skills. So she performed a simple foot sweep, which dumped Cally flat on her ass on her own bed. Jenna tripped on the edge of the bed and tumbled on top of her. Cally slid her arms under Jenna's armpits, resting her hands on Jenna's shoulderblades. They began kissing, gently and quickly, slower and harder. Cally removed her hands from Jenna's back, with a lingering caress, and unbuttoned the other two buttons.

A lace underwire half-bra was not Cally's choice for athletic wear, but she thought it looked damn good on Jenna. And even better off Jenna and thrown into the corner of the room so Cally could get her face into Jenna's cleavage and her hands in the waistband of the tap pants. I'll leave the socks on, she thought. They're so cute.

This feels good, but it's sort of strange, Jenna thought. Or else it's sort of good, but it feels strange.

Cally wriggled out of her loose v-neck top and canvas drawstring pants.

Gotta lose the Aertex vest and the knee-length bloomers, Jenna thought. And Cally did. No, I meant permanently, Jenna thought.

Cally pushed Jenna up slightly, so Cally could lie down between her legs without sliding off the edge of the bed. Jenna was already a little excited, and Cally thought she smelled and tasted like blue flowers. A few minutes later, Jenna's legs scissored, and Cally kept licking and kissing as Jenna clutched a pillow over her face and rode with the contractions of her muscles. Cally slid up Jenna's body, kissing and caressing all the way, until she paused, embracing Jenna fully and nuzzling into her neck.

After a few minutes to recover, Jenna began to feel like a bad hostess, or perhaps an ungrateful guest. Perhaps a thank-you note the next day would suffice, but she didn't think so. She nudged Cally gently, until the other woman slid away from Jenna and half onto her side, half onto her back. Jenna licked gently at one very hard nipple (which, Jenna noted with fascination but a touch of repugnance, was fuchsia and pulsated), then the other.

Well, this usually works when I do it myself, so it's worth a try, Jenna thought. She licked her index and middle fingers, pressed them against Cally's clitoris, and rubbed not as gently as all that. Cally murmured encouragement. Jenna kissed her lightly on the mouth, then more fully. Jenna slid two of the fingertips of her other hand inside Cally. Cally was very wet and ready indeed, but Jenna thought she felt different--cooler than Jenna's own moisture, and fluffier. Almost like whipped cream. Jenna increased the pressure on Cally's clitoris, and enjoyed the rippling of her muscles. Like sea waves and sea foam, she thought.

Right, Jenna thought. I've just jilled off a lady-loving alien who smells like a Christmas tree.

Mother always said there'd be days like this.

4\. Fencing

 _To seek revenge can lead to Hell,  
But everyone does it, and seldom as well_

"I can't see the point of all this," Vila said. "What do we do, just hope that someone's left some swords around for us to ponce about with, and hope that at the same time they haven't got a paragun?"

"You'll learn both aggression and the discipline of aggression," Avon said. "Very valuable for combat." Avon unzipped a very large bag, and withdrew a gleaming weapon--three feet of cold steel harnessed to a bell-like grip.

Throwing it impressively from hand to hand, he settled his fingers around the grip, raised the weapon in a chivalric salute, advanced his hand, and leapt into a lunge. If you liked that kind of thing, it was magnificent to see the pure line of his body, the stretch of his working leg, the perfect right angle between the calf and thigh of his standing leg.

Today, Avon wore his usual style of athletic gear, but the round-necked shirt was the faintest coffee-and-cream color, the trousers deep purple. In violet and planning to stay that way this time, Avon perched on a bar stool he had brought in from the galley, and drew something out from beneath his shirt. Something round, suspended by a knitted cord of black silk. A stopwatch.

He demonstrated the proper stance: the feet at right angles, a couple of feet apart; knees turned out; the non-working hand behind the head, the working hand holding the gleaming weapon. He showed them how to advance and retreat, the feet never straying from their alignment. How to move smoothly into a lunge, and how to pull back and recover. (Vila thought it was called recovery because, in his case, it took twelve steps to get back up.)

Then, for the next thirty never-ending minutes, Avon sat on the stool and made them do footwork drills, meticulously marking on a clipboard how long it took them to advance from one chalk line to the next, and immediately retreat. (If their feet turned out or in, or if they stood up from the mandatory fencing crouch, he erased the time and made them start over again.) At last he relented and showed them the basic en garde position and the three basic parries. After a few minutes' drill, he let them put on masks, gloves, and jackets, and chase each other around the room poking at each other with the foils. Plenty of time later to teach them proper technique.

 _"But worse'n'that,  
A person that,  
Titillates a person and then leaves her flat  
Is crazy..._

"I feel awful," Blake said. "What were you trying to do, kill me?" Every muscle in his lower body ached, and his stomach muscles were also constant in their reporting of information.

"No worse than learning to ride a bicycle," Avon said bitterly. "Still, I thought that a treatment with the portable therapy unit would help." He sat down at the end of Blake's bunk and summarily moved Blake's right foot closer to the wall, Blake's left foot closer to the edge of the bed.

He triggered the small mechanism. It gave a metallic grunt of unadmitted pleasure and began to emit pulses of heat.

Defensively, Blake clapped his knees together, and regretted it instantly.

"Excellent idea, why don't you just leave that here and I'll get on with it?"

"I doubt it would have quite the same effect," Avon said, continuing the deployment, starting at Blake's left knee, moving maddeningly almost far enough down, then breaking off and resuming again at Blake's right knee. His dark eyes looked almost dreamy (Almost as if he were dreaming, Blake corrected his thoughts).

"Ah, perhaps I'm flattering myself here, but I really should tell you that, well, I don't with chaps. Never have."

"Never? That speaks ill of the initiative of your Boy Scout troop, Blake." For a moment, appalled, Blake considered a half-size Avon in Boy Scout uniform, bandoliers slung over his Sam Browne, a couple of grenades dangling from his D-rings, using his scarf to garotte a rival patrol leader.

Blake contemplated rolling over onto his stomach, to conceal the evidence. That would be like pouring oil on troubled oil fires. And rolling over hurt too much anyway. He grabbed a protective pillow and draped it over his midsection.

"Don't worry, there's a lot of technology transfer," Avon said, "Except you don't have to worry about putting anybody in the club. I could teach you whatever you need to know to get started in...well, a couple of hours."

Carefully keeping his free hand half an inch or so from Blake's ankle, he continued his therapeutic ministrations. He was curious about what was going to happen. If Blake didn't want to have sex right now, then it could wait. There was more than one way to drive someone crazy in bed. Eventually, at the perfect point between the peak of anticipation and deciding the grapes were sour after all, he would eat his Blake and have him too. As for a temporarily unused erection, worse things happened in space.

 _All afternoon doing every little chore  
The thought of you stays bright.  
Sometimes I'll stand in the middle of the floor  
Not going left, not going right._

"Jenna, I'm sorry," Cally said. "I was well out of line. I simply forgot myself, that's all. At home, we never go long without bonding with our clone sisters."

With your sisters? Jenna squicked.

"But, well, we're not even related, and I know that Earth ways are not the same as ours. So I really, really should have controlled myself better, and I won't do it again." Cally paused.

No, no, not at all, didn't mind a bit, do it again, do it again RIGHT NOW, yes yes do lots more of it, Jenna didn't say.

"If you knew how miserable I was, you'd forgive me," Cally said. "It's pathetic, really. When I'm so scared, and feel so wretched, and I don't know what's wrong with me, it sort of makes sense that I'd try to do something normal to reassure myself. But it's not fair to you."

Something normal, Jenna thought. Right! "Shall I make us a cup of tea? That always seems to help." At home, tea was served at only three times of the day: early morning, elevenses, and of course teatime. Jenna's more plebeian crewmates always seemed to have the kettle on, and Jenna had fallen into their ways.

"Oh, yes, thank you! The canister marked 'Decaffeinated Gurnivian Slime Spice,' please." When Jenna returned, with a mug of Darjeeling and a couple of biscuits for herself, and tea and umeboshi plums for Cally (Aurons don't like sweets), Cally was on the verge of tears.

"I've tried so hard to fight it," Cally said. "No one wants to be a freak. But I just can't help myself. At first, when I fell in love with Roj, I thought that it was just admiration. Hero worship. A schoolgirl crush. I thought it was just a stage, and I'd get over it. But now I know that, however much I don't want to accept it, well, it says something about me. Who I really am."

"Blake? He's not a king, he's just the same as anyone we know," Jenna said. That's not true, she thought, but it sounds good.

"He scares me so."

"He's brave, of course. He's got a lot of ambition. But at the end of the day he's just a bloke, and usually blokes won't...[turn down a free jump]...reject a girl who shows that she really likes them. Why not tell him how you feel, Cally?"

"But what if he just laughs at me?"

"You'll have to take the risk, or you'll never know. Anyway, I didn't laugh at you, and I don't even like girls."

"But I know how to get girls into bed. I don't know anything about seducing a man."

"Easy as falling on a log," Jenna said.

5\. Dirty Fighting

 _Just when I'd stopped  
Opening doors._

Vila was sick and tired of it, had had about all he could stand of Avon's patent compact Insult/Chat-Up Lines, Spacefarers for the Use Of. He already knew all the conjugations of "provoke" and "provocative."

Vila didn't think much of fighting as a participant sport, but when he had to fight, there were quite a few dirty tricks in his picnic cooler. Here was his officially sanctioned chance to knock Avon across the floor and back up along the walls. He was going to get an apology, and in front of an audience too. Avon was going to come to his senses, but this time the pronoun would be all Vila's (and a yard wide).

At every stroke, Avon was going to moan, "I'm so sorry, so sorry," against Vila's ohhhhhbliggato, (ohBlakeggato? he wondered fleetingly) although Vila was not entirely sure what was going to be striking or stroking against what.

"All right, Avon," Vila told the assembled crew. "You're going to help me demonstrate. Let's pretend that you're a Federation trooper. Say, 'You're under arrest,'" Vila said apprehensively.

+Why not just say 'Take my knife...please?'+

"Very well. You're under arrest." Avon was tired enough to feel light-headed. One of the fuel consumption sensors was malfunctioning, and there were seemingly millions of lines of poorly-documented code to be examined. It wasn't hard work in the sense of hauling a coal cart, but it was intense and draining. Once one bug was eliminated, a hole sprung up that had to be patched, and by the time Avon got to a reasonable stopping-point, it was three a.m. and he was assigned an 8 a.m. watch, followed by this nonsense. Third night in a row.

"Don't just stand there like a stuffed dummy, c'mon and grab me. Then I'll demonstrate how to stop you doing that."

Avon walked right past Vila. "I've no intention of participating in anything so stupid." He walked a few steps, then turned around and neatly clotheslined Vila. He didn't get much satisfaction out of fighting, as such, but never could refuse a challenge. Vila scrambled up, located the nearest object not fastened down, and threw the contents of the bowl full of walnuts at Avon. Several of them hit. Avon scooped up a handful of spent shells and returned fire.

Gan yawned. They were throwing nuts at each other, and they weren't even up a tree.

That has some possibilities, Avon thought. When I'm a little more rested, I'll work on that. Vila sought cover (there wasn't much of it in the temporary gym) and dived under a countertop. Avon located the wastebasket, and pitched its contents toward the counter, with varying success depending on the aeronautic qualities of the detritus.

Vila sneaked behind the spectators, hoping to get right behind Avon and clock him from there.

Avon decided to go ask Zen about printing up some prospectuses for a condominium project on Cygnus Alpha. (It was already a planned community.) Halfway to the door, the ship lurched, and Avon habitually threw his arms around Vila just as Vila kicked at his ankle. They landed, audibly, in a heap on the floor.

On autopilot, Avon wondered muzzily what the safe word was, but since he hadn't heard it (whatever it was), he felt he might as well go on. So he pinned Vila's wrists above his head, captured a sensitive fold of Vila's neck between his teeth, and sucked reasonably hard. Mmmmm. It felt good to stretch. Avon arched his back. Vila locked one of his legs over the corresponding one of Avon's.

"That's not my idea of a combat move," Jenna said.

"Oh, I don't know," Vila told her. "My will to fight has weakened considerably."

"You're supposed to be getting him off you," she added. "With the words in that order."

Gan cleared his throat.

 _Which eliminates B,  
And which leaves us with A._

Like most people who give advice, Jenna didn't entirely believe it herself. Although it is often possible to obtain carnal knowledge of a human male (and no matter however less often it proves rewarding) it's not always a sure thing.

Jenna had thought that it was awfully bloody lucky when the prison matron on Zephapod 3 had given her that cake with a file inside it. It took a couple of days to get to the computer and install the file, but once that was done, the jail doors sprung open. You can't derive many conclusions from an isolated incident. Oh, perhaps there was a little current of feeling, from her colleague Martha at The Children's Hour Infants' School. That must have been innocent, though. A nice tasteful J&oc. Mustn't it?

But now this business, whatever it was, with Cally.

Reassurance, that was the ticket. Find out that she could still attract a man, and still be glad afterwards that she had attracted him. But where to obtain such solace? Blake, she thought, might prove rather difficult. And if he could keep Cally occupied and out of her hair, so much the better.

Better take the easy way out, at least at first. If you can't get one off the biggest roundheels in the Galaxy, there's nothing left but monasticism. Avon, Jenna thought, really might do anything with anybody. Well, so probably would Vila, but Avon would do it more elaborately.

Avon had one foot up on his desk. He leaned back in the swivel chair, and thought about what to think about in case he opted for self-help remedies.

There was a knock on the door. He put his foot down. Jenna, closely guarded by a dark red leather jumpsuit, walked through the door. "Avon, do you think I'm an attractive woman?"

"I think you're absolutely lovely," he said. And even if she looked like the back end of a Universal Serial Bus, that outfit would be enough to get him going. Chamois, was it, or kidskin? "If you mean, would I like to go to bed with you in the abstract, or preferably right now, then yes I would."

Avon surreptitiously kicked off his ankle boots, and used his left foot to push the sock off his right foot. The left foot was easier, he could use the right toes prehensilely. It was always so embarrassing to hop around shedding shoes when trousers had already been unfastened.

Usually, with a first-time female partner, he made it a point of pride to get her off at least once or twice while they were still fully dressed. But this time, he wasn't going to wait long at all to feel that smooth, soft leather against his bare skin. As he stood up to take Jenna in his arms, he shrugged off his own jacket. He put one hand on the small of Jenna's back and used the other to hang his jacket over the back of the desk chair.

It must be wonderful to be able to have as many orgasms you like, without saving them up, he thought. Like having so much money that no one could touch you. Apart from the not-touching bit.

He bent his head and kissed her gently, with both hands stroking her back. At least someone around here was noticeably shorter than he was. A few kisses later, he turned her head and began to nibble her earlobe. He slid one hand down her neck to caress her clavicle. That gave him a hand free to slide open the fastening on his shirt. Fortunately it wasn't the kind with closely gathered cuffs, so it fell off once he shrugged it past his shoulders.

Avon decided that the substance comprising her jumpsuit must be I Love My Wife But Glace Kid. Its slick, cool feeling was so diverting that it took him a few minutes to find the zip fastener and inch it downwards.

Jenna smelled like baby powder. Well, so did he--getting tight leathers on, and especially off, is diabolical. With the jumpsuit unzipped and peeled back to waist level, he stopped to enjoy her breasts. (The bra was built in to the suit, nothing extra to be removed.) He put his head down on her shoulder to concentrate on caressing her, then bent down far enough to lick delicately at one of Jenna's nipples, rolling the other between his fingers. Then, deliberately, he reversed both polarity and method, sucking as much of one breast as deep into his mouth as he could, roughly kneading her other breast with his whole hand.

It was much harder to peel off the rest of the jumpsuit than to remove the tiny g-string beneath, which was thoughtfully equipped with buckles on the sides.

Avon was amused to see that the toenails of Jenna's soft, perfectly shaped feet were painted sugar pink. He couldn't imagine how and when she found the time to pedicure them, or why the absurd high-heeled boots she wore didn't gnarl her toes and induce bunions. That afternoon, she wore absurd high-heeled mules instead, in oyster-white leather matching the trim of her jumpsuit.

Her pubic hair, glinting bronze and gold, was carefully trimmed as a well-kept croquet lawn. Nail scissors? he wondered. Well, if she ever needs any help with maintenance, considering who's expected to maintain every other wretched thing on this whole wretched ship...

He kissed the hollow part where her thigh joined the vaulted groin, and licked along the line demarcating hip from thigh. A soft dry kiss first, and then Jenna asked (a hand on his belt buckle), "Doesn't anybody fuck around here?"

"Oh, all right," Avon said, a little annoyed. "You only need ask." He stretched perilously, just managed to get one of the under-bed drawers open, and groped until he located a foil-wrapped contraceptive gel. He snapped it open with one hand, and glided its contents inside Jenna.

Too bad. He had planned to put the bolsters back on the bed, top them off with all the pillows, and arrange Jenna with her delicious arse upwards, her hair spilling down, and the nape of her neck exposed to his caresses. Rear-entry positions often worked well with first-time partners. No restrictions were placed on their scope to think about whoever they happened to be thinking about.

Jenna got the belt buckle open, disengaged about an inch of the fastener, and placed just the tip of her index finger inside the opening. Two could play at that little game. Avon sighed against her neck, and alternated among licks, nibbles and nips. Jenna continued very slow release of the fastener, and very slow insinuation of her hand, until her hand was caught between a layer of silk and something very much harder.

"No, it wouldn't win any ribbons at a cattle show," Avon said. Now he was really annoyed.

Jenna sighed as they cooperated on trouser removal, and once again found the right thing to say. "Let's see what you can do with it." Really, the Federation was just playing up to men with all that rubbish about Blake. Women understood that, whether you planned on it or not, you couldn't help ending up in bed with little boys. And once you realized that you could get an entire baby OUT of there, it was hard to be as impressed as they seemed to expect with what they were putting in there.

"Had your tonsils out?" Avon asked. He propped her foot up on his shoulder, entered her, then moved her foot across to his other shoulder, to get really deep and still keep kissing Jenna. Really, he thought, if he could only engage in one sexual practice, he would have to choose kissing. Fortunately he didn't have to--that would be like having to choose between gluttony and good old-fashioned lust.

You won't need me for a while, his mind told him. I'll just go offline. I'll check in every hour.

Jenna thought it was only fair to acknowledge to herself that, among meaningless diversions lasting a couple of hours, participating in one of Avon's lecture/demonstrations of his comprehensive knowledge of all human and humanoid sexual practices...was pretty far from the worst. Streets better than Waterworld. Certainly better than, say, Dances With Wolves. But then again, it wasn't Titanic either.

6\. Target Practice

 _Everybody's got a right to have their dreams_

"This is my rifle," Blake said, holding up a carbine.

"This is my gun," Cally said, displaying one of the Liberator weapons.

"This is for shooting," Blake said.

"This is for shooting too, isn't it?" Cally asked. "I could never figure that one out."

Five humans tried not to laugh.

Every time the Travis holo popped up, they'd all fire. And all miss. Until the last time when Blake slowed it down and Avon put paid to it at last.

They didn't have any luck with the Servalan holo, it always got away. Though its lipstick was a little smudged by the wake of a few shots that passed it by.

 _Although she gets restive,  
Perhaps I could read.  
In view of her penchant  
For something romantic  
De Sade is too trenchant  
And Dickens too frantic_

The readertext in Cally's hand had a vivid red stripe on all four edges. "Apparently these materials were found useful by pre-Atomic fomentors of revolt," Cally said. "No doubt you are familiar with their principles. I thought we could analyze their usefulness for our own situation."

Blake slotted the readertext into his output reader. "Ah, of course, the Thoughts of Chairman Mao. His revolution succeeded for a while, but ultimately failed. Apparently it failed to take desires for wealth and consumer goods sufficiently into account."

"Perhaps you can answer a question for me. These materials do not seem to be particularly amusing. Yet when I scan ancient archives, there are numerous references to ROFL MAO."

"There's a great deal we'll never understand about them, Cally. The past is another country. They have nasty great blokes with guns at the border trying to shoot you."

"Blake--Roj--in the time we've spent together, my admiration for your leadership has only grown. And so, well, so have my personal feelings for you."

"I'm very fond of you myself, Cally," Blake said. "By Jove, I think of you as a sister."

Cally pumped one fist in the air. Yessssss! Then she reached under Blake's soft, leaf-brown tunic in preparation for pumping her other fist somewhere it might do some good.

Blake sighed. In light of the treble damages provisions of the Rebel's Union Anti-Sexual-Harassment Policy, which could empty out the entire Treasure Room with a single charge--administrative, not explosive--he felt it was necessary to clarify Cally's intentions. (Union HQ had designated Avon as shop steward, the theory that sheer bloody-mindedness can make up for any amount of lack of dedication to the cause.)

"My lovely, sweet Cally," Blake said, gazing at her, his hands on her slender arms (simultaneously embracing her and holding her at arm's length). "Do you mean you want to make love?"

"Yes, dearest."

"But, have you ever...with a man, I mean...the Auronar are isolationist...you were never a Boy Scout...."

[What the hell do Boy Scouts have to do with anything?] "My people have a say....that is, no, Roj, but there's a first time for everything."

"I don't want to hurt you, sweetheart. We'll have to be very careful."

"Not to worry," Cally said. Zen had already assured her that Aurons, at 48 chromosomes, were not interfertile with humans. "I used to do show-jumping and dressage. You know, on a nnrr!augh'm--big quadruped, about ten feet high, plenty to get between your legs...ummh, two heads, wings, the usual. In fact, they made a vidcast about me, "Intergalactic Velvet." That's one reason I got the sailor's elbow out of Auron. They thought I was well up myself."

"Eighty-sixed," Blake said sympathetically.

"Sometimes that's seventeen too many," Cally said.

Blake gathered her to him and embraced her fully, delighting in the feeling of her slender, lithe, boyish (girlish! girlish! he shouted at himself) body against his own.

 _Because we need a Little Christmas,  
Right THIS VERY MINUTE _ (Author's Note: OK, wrong songwriter. Soiv a paper and sue me.)

"Are all Earthling males like this?" Cally asked.

"Hell, no!" Blake said bluffly.

"How lovely its alien form is," Cally whispered. "Like an orchid! Oh, wait, that's a different fandom. But it is kind of velvety, and pinky, and purply..."

"You can tell who's writing this bloody story," Blake said mournfully. "All talk, no action."

"It gets better," Cally said, shoving Blake against the Fourth Wall and getting one hand right around his endowment and the other one on his private foundation. Some of her words were lost, inaudible as she buried her mouth against Blake's velour overshirt. "I got Avon to promise to TAKE HER [to] THREE REALLY BIG [rummage sales] IN ONE DAY, and he said he'd HOLD THE TAPE MEASURE [in case they wouldn't let her try on the jeans], and by the time he GOT HER HOME she'd BE SO [shopped] OUT she'd be [hanging up clothes] FOR A WEEK."

Well, takes all kinds, Blake and Cally thought in unison. I don't see what all those women think is so bloody marvelous about....  
Avon...thought Blake.  
Shopping...thought Cally.

 _If she weren't so awfully perfect  
It would have been wonderful._

Fabric was flung, and they embraced in mid-cabin then Blake lifted Cally into a fireman's carry and gently deposited her on the bed.

To boldly go....Blake started to think. Then an annoying animated paper clip floated over his head and said, "It looks like you're writing a letter."

"Oh, sod off," Blake said. "Not you darling, the paper clip."

"I wish Avon would hurry up and get on with the Unix installation," Cally panted, completing the installation of a decidedly non-Unix operating system.

As the delicious sensations washed through Cally, her back arched and she clasped her thighs closer around Blake's purposefully thrusting body. [This is so wonderful...so delicious...oh, yes, yes, now, I'm going to come, I'm going to come soon, in ten seconds...]

"I'll give you five," Blake said.

7\. General Discharge

 _Here's the sorrowful precis.  
It's very messy._

Not-a-bleedin'-gain, Blake thought. He had forgotten to look down, and his boot was mired in a sticky patch. A few days earlier, Avon had invented a spring-loaded weapon, powered by CO2 cartridges, that shot ping-pong balls filled with Heinz Tomato Sauce. Everyone except Blake and Jenna had developed a mania for sneaking up on comrades and assaulting them with sauceballs.

Avon had also rigged up a booby trap with a dozen of the blasted things in Blake's bedroom cupboard. Fortunately the front of his shirt had borne the brunt--Blake hated to think about having to trouble-shoot the interface between curly hair and tomato sauce. Dammit, he thought. You can't shoot a male in the tail like a quail. No, you can't get a man with a gun.

Consequently, there was no more tomato sauce left. Not that anyone else cared--Jenna didn't eat chips, everyone else put malt vinegar on theirs. Blake couldn't even relax with a mild whiskey and soda because all of the cartridges for the soda siphon had been beaten into swords. (The whipped cream maker had long been out of commission, starting about as soon as Vila realized what was in the propellant cartridges for that. )

The washing machines ran triple shifts. Patches of red oxidized to brown spotted the walls and floor. Blake worried about what the viscous mess was going to attract. Next thing you knew, it'd be giant spiders.

Trust Avon to give us all a lead, Blake thought. He would be the first to charge in to a perilous situation, to show how much better he was at going through the door first than you. He'd take your place in the dungeons of the Inquisition to prove how much better he was at getting tortured than you. When someone told him about the Ultraworld Challenge, he sent in fourteen entries under different e-mail addresses and they were all about what a stunningly brilliant lay he was. (Blake also had his suspicions about the origin of the "impotent Blake" genre.)

By the same token, if Avon was going to be immature, he was going to be operatically immature. He would be to childish malice what Wagner was to Bayreuth: vast deployment of multimedia, and you thought you'd never hear the end of it.

+Three pursuit ships detected. In fact, I think one of them is Travis', it's got a naked girl with really big ones and an eyepatch airbrushed on the side.+ Zen said nastily. Of course there weren't any pursuit ships, this minute anyway, but it might distract them for a while so they'd forget all this military training nonsense. Not one of my better ideas, Zen thought.

"Travis!" Blake said, nervously.

"Ignore him," Avon added mid-yawn. After all, he wasn't the one that Travis was so comprehensively hacked off at. "He doesn't know his arsenal from his elbow."

"He's not as tough as he thinks he is," reassured Vila.

"Neither are we," said Blake.

 _Old situations, new complications.  
This time it all turns out all right.  
Tragedy tomorrow!  
Comedy tonight!_


End file.
